"Tommy Boy" Turns 30 in Sandusky, Ohio

In 1995, “Tommy Boy” was released. The movie starred Chris Farley as Tommy Callahan, son of Big Tom, who owned an auto parts factory in Sandusky, Ohio. After Big Tom’s death, Tommy Boy had to go out and save the family business, with his co-worker Richard (David Spade). The two bond, they uncover a scheme by Big Tom’s widow (Bo Derek) and end up living happily ever after.

The movie was a modest success upon its release but has grown to cult status. In fact, it’s one of the things that always gets brought up when Tom Horsman, the city’s communications manager, talks about Sandusky.

“It’s either Cedar Point or Callahan Auto,” he says. “It’s a movie that a lot of people have a passion for. It’s not an Academy Award winner, but it has a special place in a lot of people’s hearts.”

And this August, the city of Sandusky is celebrating the movie’s 30th anniversary with Tommy Boy Fest. The festivities kick off Aug. 7, with a Party on the Pier, with a guest appearance by Chris Farley’s brother Kevin, and run through Aug. 9. There will be showings of the movie, a car show featuring the Plymouth Belvedere GTX convertible — “It looks like it did at the beginning of the movie,” says Sandusky recreation director Jason Werling — a look-alike contest, a trivia contest, “Tommy Want Wingie Throwdown” wing-eating contest and a “Fat Guy in a Little Race.”

Plans for the event started more than five years ago, with the idea of celebrating the movie’s 25th anniversary, but the onset of COVID-19 led it to be delayed until the 30th anniversary. Horsman says the event will include activities at local restaurants and breweries, and offers a chance for people to see that Sandusky isn’t the dying industrial town depicted in the movie.

“We’re celebrating our role in the movie, but we’re celebrating where Sandusky is now,” Horsman says. “One thing that people need to experience at Sandusky is that it’s more than Cedar Point and more than a place for people to catch a ferry to the islands. Over the last decade, downtown has seen $150 million in private and public investment.”

Horsman anticipates drawing a crowd from across the country and notes with some irony that there will be a booth representing Cuyahoga Falls at the festival. “They probably won’t fly in,” Horsman jokes. (There’s a scene in the movie that talks about flying from Cuyahoga Falls to Sandusky, an unintentionally funny moment in a movie filled with intentionally funny ones.)

It’s a rare inaccuracy when it comes to the town. The movie was largely filmed in Canada, Werling notes, but someone definitely paid attention to local details. Newspaper boxes from the local newspaper, the Sandusky Register, can be seen in the movie, the police cars looked like Sandusky police cars at the time, and at least one character can be spotted with a Cedar Point mug.

Horsman says there’s been a lot of interest from throughout the country — and he hopes people will be charmed by what they see in Sandusky. “There’s a lot to do here outside of the festival,” he says. You can go to the islands, go to Cedar Point, go to our indoor water parks. There’s restaurants, wineries and breweries too.

“Hopefully, this is an excuse for people to discover everything else here.”

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